Day 100, Monday, June 24, 2024: Detroit, Michigan to Ludington, Michigan

Carnegie libraries visited: Bronson, Cassopolis, Dowagiac, Allegan, and Ludington, Michigan

Days sober: 368

I’m lucky that I sleep well, with a newly clean conscience and the ability to ignore most noises. My flight was delayed, and I didn’t arrive at my overnight parking spot until almost 2 a.m. Goldfinger didn’t stink when I opened the door after it sat for ten days in the sun, with both oranges and apples left inside. Before catching my flight to Arkansas, I had tossed a couple of bananas under the car – apparently, disposing of them in a garbage bin didn’t occur to me – and they had vanished; thanks, garage rats. Jets began taking off from the Detroit Metro Airport around 4 a.m., and semis loaded with ball bearings, jack hammers, and party noisemakers drove by every couple of minutes. The heat dome that had been blanketing Michigan and the northeast had lifted, and with the car windows open my bedroom was comfy.

None of the five Carnegies I visited today had any online information about the women who helped make them. My only nibble was a sign outside of the Bronson library which stated that the library originated through the work of the Ladies Library Association. That was not enough to tempt me to research the library further.

The banner outside the Decatur library cracked me up: “Live, Work, and Play in Decatur.” Immediately underneath it a sign reads “No bicycle riding, skateboarding, rollerblading, roller skating.” So, really, just live and work there.

Bronson Carnegie Library

Cassapolis Carnegie Library

Dowagiac Carnegie Library

Allegan Carnegie Library

Late in the afternoon I wrote inside the remodeled Allegan Carnegie, with a splendid view of the lake behind it. A boardwalk zig-zagged over the water, empty in the sun.

The 8 pm recovery meeting I sought in Ludington had been canceled, so I drove to the Butterfield Park Beach to walk along the shore and think. The beach was flawless – not a piece of trash anywhere – and the pink sand was silky. The beach is bordered by bluffs, trimmed with the occasional stairways leading from the homes at the top. The beach was almost deserted. Odd, I thought, for a beautiful June evening.

Rather than watching Netflix, I backed Goldfinger toward the beach, opened the hatch, and sat to enjoy the sunset. I took a few pictures, and then my phone pushed “Memories” (photo albums set to music) to me. I watched a couple of these Memories, and they did bring them back. One set involved my trip to Peru in 2017. It was an educational, social, and cultural trip with Georgetown faculty and staff which included a visit to the breathtaking Machu Picchu. I was also reminded of my drinking behavior. When we arrived in Cusco, at an elevation of 11,152 feet, we were warned: avoid alcohol because it can worsen altitude sickness. So I immediately went in search of some. After we checked into our hotel in Aguas Calientes, the town closest to Machu Picchu, I went out to “explore” the town, with explore being shorthand for “finding something to drink.” At the trip’s conclusion, I stayed an extra night in Lima at an art-filled boutique inn (courtesy of a Georgetown alumna), enjoying its beauty and comfort only after I had gone out “exploring.”. It’s not that I got blottoed on the trip – I didn’t – it’s just that several of my keenest memories of the trip involve my obsession with obtaining alcohol.